


The Tapestry

by wibblywobblytime77



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drugs, F/M, Fate & Destiny, Gen, Overdosing, References to Drugs, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Temporary Character Death, Triggers, seriously if you have a problem with drugs or suicide dont read this, threads of fate - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-18 19:55:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2360288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wibblywobblytime77/pseuds/wibblywobblytime77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is dying to know his fate. Literally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tapestry

Warnings for character death and drug use.

 

The day Sherlock Holmes died began like any other. Boring. He woke to a dim and dreary flat in the bad part of London. Blinking owlishly in the dusty light slanting through the broken and twisted blinds, he tried to remember the last thing he had done the day before and failed; the previous day's events were blurred and muddled like a watercolor gone wrong. This was nothing new; the morning after a binge was always a bit scrambled. He'd been trying unsuccessfully for months to control his unfortunate drug habit. Frankly, he was more than a little surprised that Mycroft had not gotten involved yet.

Sherlock made a half-hearted attempt at picking himself up off of the floor; clearly he hadn't made it to the flimsy cot he called a bed. The right side of his face felt stiff and wooden, he was sure that it showed many creases and bumps, the negative of the warped linoleum. He rubbed his face as he levered himself into a more or less upright position. He groaned softly in discomfort; the whole right side of his body protested heavily at the change of position. A night spent on the hard floor had done nothing to help his already sore and aching muscles.

He glanced around his dingy flat and grimaced. It wasn't exactly what he was used to but desperate times called for desperate measures and he did not, under any circumstances, want his brother to know where he was. If he did there was no telling the lengths he'd go to to "help" Sherlock. It was cocaine that had made his weeks among the poor and homeless of London necessary. He'd used his resources and spent his money trying to switch off the world if only for a few moments. Always chasing the high, desperate for another hit. He had moved into more and more rundown flats until finally he'd landed himself here in what was basically a glorified basement with only a few windows that peeked out onto the streets of the outside world. It was dreary and dirty but at least he wasn't on the streets. Yet. He knew it was only a matter of time.

He stood using the grimy wall for support (he could clean them but he just could not bring himself to care) and hobbled out to the kitchen. To call it a kitchen was to be generous but it had all the necessities; a coffee pot, a refrigerator, a microwave and a crummy stove that he hardly ever used. He opened the fridge and gazed upon the pitiful contents. A carton of milk, a half empty jar of jam, a bottle of ranch dressing and a few other odds and ends were the only things gracing its only slightly mildewed interior.

As was normal, he was not hungry, so Sherlock withdrew only the milk and set it on the counter-top along with the other fixings for tea. He leaned back against the counter and waited for the water to boil, or at least get warm enough to make something resembling the aforementioned drink. It really depended on how much more bored he got in the meantime.

While he waited his mind wandered to the blissful peace that came with every injection of the drug. Sherlock didn't think that he was addicted to the drug itself, per se, but to that feeling of absolute clarity it brought. All the things his mind saw, all of the minute pieces and parts of the puzzle that no one else even seemed to know about, they connected in ways that showed him to the heart of the matter. The use of those puzzle pieces could solve nearly any crime. The drug, the cocaine, it helped to calm the fuzz of other thoughts that crowed his mind so that he could concentrate on the task on hand. While using, everything was in perfect alignment. Sherlock's mind worked may times faster than normal while high; it was the fuel to the wildfire of his mind.

Mycroft thought he should stop, find a hobby and settle down, maybe with a dog. Sherlock detested the notion that he could ever be seen as relatively normal. Two weeks with a job anywhere that he had to report to everyday, on time none the less, and he would probably kill himself or everyone else. Somehow he didn't think this was the outcome that his dear brother was hoping for. Maybe Mytcroft just didn't understand the concept of boredom from where he sat high above everyone else, ruling over the goldfish of Britain.

The kettle screamed, jarring Sherlock out of his resentment fueled thoughts. He opened the cupboard and scrounged around for one of the few remaining clean mugs. Grasping one triumphantly, he pulled it down and carefully filled it with the hot water from the kettle. He picked up an unopened tea bag and squinted at the label that he was sure just seconds ago had been English but now appeared to the unintelligible scrawl of a small child just beginning to grasp the concept of writing. He blinked and the words condensed themselves into a decipherable language. Earl Grey, Oh, well that was fine then. He tore open the package and dumped the tea bag into the mug. After throwing a couple of spoonfuls of sugar into the cup he turned towards the milk carton and grabbed it, fully intending to make a generous addition to his tea. He opened the carton and gagged; it was spoiled.

He tossed the half full carton into the already overflowing trashcan and returned to his tea. He stirred it slowly and as he did so he realized fully just how tedious and boring life had gotten for him. The only thing that made Sherlock feel anything was the drug. Nothing compared with the high. In fact, maybe, a little seven-percent was just what he needed right now. Just to liven things up a bit, take the edge of the overpowering boredom. Oh, he knew that it was highly dangerous, especially after his binge the night before. He was just so bored.

He walked to the table, tea still in hand and sat, staring at the case that contained the precious cocaine and the everything required to obtain the sought after high. A syringe for the fastest effects, tourniquet, etc. He set aside the tea and lovingly caressed the cool glass of the medical instrument. Sherlock withdrew the syringe from its case and inserted preferred mixture of seven percent solution before attaching a clean needle to the end. He tied a tourniquet on his left arm and clenched his hand into a fist, raising the veins so he could easily insert the fine needle. He squirted a tiny bit of the drug from the syringe to eliminate any air bubbles from the vial.

 

Satisfied that everything was set up for the best possible results, Sherlock pushed the needle through the thin flesh of his left arm below the tourniquet and into the vein. He didn't even jump when it popped through. He pulled the plunger out a bit, drawing his blood into the vial to mix with the already present solution, then, painstakingly slowly, injected the entire dose of cocaine that he had put into the syringe.

He removed the tourniquet, set the syringe aside and took a sip of his tea before settling back into his chair to await the clarity and perfection that was due any second. When it hit it was bliss, it was so good he wanted to go out and hug the next person he met out of sheer joy. Unfortunately, twenty minutes later, the high faded and he was left to deal with the come down of the drug. He shook his head grimly, he just wasn't in the mood, not today.

Repeating the same process as before, he injected again. This time the high seemed to last an even shorter amount of time and he was forced to shoot up again. This continued for the next few hours until Sherlock realized blearily that he had run out. This time when the lows hit there was no barrier, nothing to stop them, and it was worse, so much worse than anything he had experienced before. His heart sped then slowed then sped up again like a race car trapped behind a minivan who had no business on the racetrack. His head pounded and his vision shrank to a small pin point of color before blacking out completely. Dimly, in the back his mind Sherlock Holmes realized he was dying. A jagged white light similar to lightning crackled through his mind and he was gone.

.........

Sherlock opened his eyes to behold an ornate tapestry that extended in all directions and yet in none. It took him a moment to notice that he was not standing but floating over the woven and tangled threads.

A great voice boomed from nowhere and everywhere, seeming to reverberate off of the very molecules of the air, "Look upon the tapestry of fate, Sherlock Holmes, and see what damage your actions have wrought."

Sherlock could see fate spread out beneath him and it was beautiful. He could see where, in the future, his dark blue (he knew which was his instinctively) thread would have touched and then gotten tangled in a warm honey colored one with tiny bits of scarlet along its much of its length, the two becoming inseparable as years went by and the tapestry continued.

They separated for a bit when his thread met a blood-red one. The dark blue thread tangled with this new one every now and then until the blood thread ended in a knot with his that only Sherlock's came out of. After this his thread veered off on a tangent, away from the honey colored one, during which it came into contact with many unsavory threads; browns, dirty oranges, and muted greens with a splash of yellow or the red of dried blood here and there. As a whole, the time away from the honey thread was dark and unhappy, tinged with sadness, fear and pain. His thread added a few curious streaks of blood red fibers to its length during this time away.

While they were separated, the honey thread had found a new thread to tangle with, this time in a decidedly different way. This time, instead of tangling and weaving about one another the two threads twined together, twisting so tightly that they were nearly indistinguishable. The new thread was a pleasant peach color that, like his, was streaked ever so slightly with red fibers but the fibers were much more abundant than in either his or the honey colored threads'.

When his thread returned from its abrupt adventure, it rejoined its honey thread, this time keeping its distance a bit as if testing the waters before tangling happily (it seemed, anyway) around the combined honey and peach-with-blood threads.

 

That was all Sherlock could see before the fog consumed the tapestry in the distance. It was perfect and good and right. Sure, it was tangled and thorny, fraught with danger and passion but he wouldn't have it any other way. It was his life.

He watched in dismay as his thread was cut prematurely, all of its future twists and tangles with the honey thread and others disappearing and weaving a wide band of disorder and destruction where there had once been gleeful divergence from the norm and a tangle of true friendship.

The biggest and most saddening change was that where his thread had once met the honey-and-blood one the honey thread just stopped. It should have continued, gloriously and vibrantly alive, it's once faded colors revived by the meeting with his dark blue thread. Instead it simply disappeared, never to find its partner the peach thread, with which it fit so well it seemed meant to be.

The crimson/blood thread that his had once converged with rampaged its way through the tapestry, ending multitudes of threads here and there, creating holes, tangling and separating threads and just generally wreaking havoc until it appeared to get bored and then it too, was extinguished.

Sherlock's viewpoint zoomed until he could see precisely the spot where the honey thread ended. A picture unfolded from the center of his vision and Sherlock was caught up in a whirlwind of color and sound before everything quieted down.

..........

He regained awareness in a small, spartan flat in what appeared to be London. Sherlock walked further into the room taking in the minute details and learned what he could about the occupant of the space. Ex-military, medical doctor, possibly PTSD, all this was clear from the layout of the room and its contents. The bed's blankets were tucked neatly into the mattress without a wrinkle in sight. The lack of personal effects practically screamed 'disinterest', possibly he had sold most of his possessions before leaving for the war and just hadn't bothered to obtain anymore. There were a couple of medical textbooks in the sparsely furnished shelves off to one side, judging by the dates the books were released the occupant of the flat had finished earning his doctorate before leaving for the war.

 

Sherlock stiffened as he heard footsteps outside of the front door, he scrambled to stand in a corner where he wouldn't be too noticeable. Keys jangled and clashed against the metal doorknob and the door opened with a creak. Sherlock held his breath desperately and wondered how he was going to explain his presence in a stranger's flat.

A man walked into the flat carrying a paper coffee mug and muttering about his bad leg. Definitely PTSD then. He set the cup down on the table and walked over to the bed to sit on the pristine surface. He sighed.

"If I had know that was going to be that awkward then I would have walked faster, bad leg be damned," he grumbled.

He glanced around the small room and sighed again. Sherlock relaxed when he realized that the man could not see him. The man scrubbed at his face with his hand and levered himself off of the bed to limp over to where a laptop sat, signs of disuse clear in its scratch and scuff-less casing even though it was a year or two old. He dropped heavily into the folding chair positioned in front of a cheap desk and opened the laptop. The screen blinked on, already open to The Personal Blog of John H. Watson. The text box was empty and the cursor seemed to blink tauntingly at the man.

John stared at the screen for a moment or two before slamming the lid shut again with much more force than as strictly necessary. Sherlock got the impression that this was not usual behavior for the doctor; the laptop was in much too good of condition to have sustained that kind of shock repeatedly. In a fit of pique John tore open the desk drawer and withdrew a handgun. He brought the muzzle to his temple and gritted his teeth, thumb on the safety before letting loose a cry of anguish and throwing the gun back into the drawer in disgust.

Sherlock was shocked. He was almost positive he was about to see this man kill himself and he could do nothing to stop it. A small part of him wondered why he cared, after all he didn't know Dr. John Watson at all. That part was quickly silenced by the image of the twined threads that wove the tangled friendship that he and this man should have shared in the future.

John sat and stared at the wall for a while. Just sat there at his desk, not typing, not doing anything, just staring. After a while longer Sherlock watched an air of grim decisiveness creep over the doctor's face and as he calmly slid the drawer open again, he knew that this time John had made up his mind. This was the end of John Watson and it was his fault. Indirectly of course but still, if he had lived so to would have Dr. Watson.

John withdrew the weapon from the drawer and brought the muzzle to his temple. A look of panic flashed across his face before he tightened his jaw and clamped down on the emotion. He flipped off the safety and his finger tightened on the trigger. Sherlock had time to jump from his hiding place and shout something intelligible before a loud bang sounded. Before he could even register that John was dead, there was a thump as John's already cooling corpse slumped over and his head hit the desk.

Sherlock backed up a couple of steps in horror before rushing to the doctor's side. He reached out a hand to check the nonexistent pulse, he knew John was dead but for some reason he felt the need to check, only to find that his hand slid right through the body. Sherlock glanced at his finger in disbelief, then stared as they began to fade. Soon all of him had faded and the last thing his saw before his vision blacked out were John's cold, dead eyes.

******

Again he was staring at the tapestry and this time he was looking a one of the massive holes that the blood thread had carved into the fabric. His vision diminished to a point and once again a picture unfolded across his vision.

He was standing at the base of a building that was smoking and coming down in bits with a huge hole torn in the side. The building was a large skyscraper that stood in central London. Flakes of ash landed on his face and body as the dust began to settle. In the hole that once been a large part of three floors he could see panicked people milling around in confusion and terror.

That was when the screams started. People had started to realize their situation. Just as the first person began to leave the building there was a rumble and what had once been a building full of people became a pile of rubble and dust and a sweeping debree cloud. Sherlock didn't have to look into the future to know that there would be few, if any, survivors.

 

He blinked and suddenly he was standing in deep black space. He looked around him and it was just unending, unchanging black. He was startled by the voice that again appeared out of everywhere and nowhere.

"These are the just a small selection of the events that come to pass if you continue to do what you have been doing, Sherlock. Because of these horrors we have decided to grant you one last chance. Remember this and grow from it."

******

There was a startling shock and a steady beeping sound along with the sounds of commanding and urgent voices as his foggy mind slowly woke from it's journey into the realm of fate. He could hear the rustle of bodies moving around him and it was to the hustle and bustle of the ER that he finally cracked open his gummy eyes. His lips quirked in a tiny smile; he he was alive and his destiny was on track. There was a hard road ahead but if anyone could handle it was him and his intellect.

******

Years later in a lab at St. Bart's hospital he met a man in whom he could almost see the thread like a physical thing. It's honey-and-blood colored length wrapped around the man's heart and twinned through him like a vein for his soul. Sherlock asked him a seemingly out of the blue question, one that he had been itching to ask for years, and in that moment, changed both of their lives.


End file.
